Early in August, French news agencies unofficially reported President Ho’s imminent return to Viet Nam. This news coincided with our delegation’s declaration that they were suspending the Fontainebleau conference. Evidently, the negotiations held no prospects of success.
During these days, the French troops had repeatedly carried out provocative acts along the Hanoi-Lang Son route. As had been agreed upon by both sides, the French army was permitted to go to Lang Son to replace the withdrawing Chiang Kai-shek troops. The modalities for the logistical supplies for French troops stationed far from Hanoi had been clearly laid down. But the French army units assigned to this task were constantly violating these provisions. They often went without an authorized pass, including even armoured vehicles in the supply convoys and seldom failing to provoke our soldiers at the sentry posts along the road.
On August 1, a French military lorry drove from Lang Son to Hanoi. Our sentry post at Duong bridge asked to see their pass. When the French replied that they had left it behind, our men requested them to stay where they were while they telephoned a report to the Central Liaison and Control Commission. However, the French drove on across the bridge. Our men blew their whistles to stop them, but in reply, the French opened fire hitting five of our national defence guards and two civilians. Our soldiers returned the fire. The lorry rushed over the bridge and headed for Gia Lam.
We knew that the French reactionaries in Indochina were deliberately making trouble so as to wreck the already precarious negotiations at Fontainebleau. The delicate problem now was that president Ho and our delegation were still on French soil. Faced with the French troops’ provocative acts, we tried to find a peaceful settlement while remaining firm in our dealings with them. However, our people, burning with pent-up anger against the French invaders, were liable to fight back at once, particularly when the enemy caused losses to life and property.
Two days after the incident on Duong bridge, on August 3, a French convoy of twenty lorries drove from Hanoi to Lang Son. When crossing Duong bridge, the French soldiers wantonly opened fire shooting at the sides of the road. They fired into a sentry post two kilometres from Bac Ninh, killing one national defence guard. The convoy raced on into Bac Ninh town, firing away all the time. Our soldiers and self-defence force fired back. The clash went on from 7.30 a.m. until noon.
Instead of joining us in an effort to find a settlement, the French command in Hanoi sent up a detachment of reinforcements accompanied by armoured cars. On their way, the French troops opened fire and set on fire several houses in the Duong bridge area and in Yen Vien and Tu Son districts. They arrived in Bac Ninh at 10 a.m. Thus, the clash worsened. The Vietnamese-French Joint Commission came in the afternoon but its intervention was to no avail.
On August 4, the French major commanding the operation requested our authorities in Bac Ninh to let him station his troops in the barracks of the former “Indochinese Guard”. We rejected this absurd request. A few hours later, four French aircraft came to attack the town, hitting civilian houses. The French troops refused to withdraw from the town.
On August 6, Crepin, Commissioner of the French Republic in the North, acting in place of Sainteny who had returned to France, came to see us at the Bac Bo palace. He protested against the French casualties caused by our side in Bac Ninh. We replied that the clash had been brought on by the French troops’ provocation. The Vietnamese side had agreed to send a joint commission to investigate with a view to a settlement but the trouble continued because the French troops refused to pull out of Bac Ninh, thus seriously violating the provisions of the Agreement signed by the two sides.
Crepin said: “If you allow such action to go on, clashes will surely break out.” This was a veiled threat. I replied: “You know very well the cause of clashes of this type. French troops have been mainly responsible for them. We have expressed our good will on several occasions. There will be peace if you want peace, war if you want war.”
Faced with our firm stand, Crepin lowered his tone and changed the subject. He offered to ship to the North a quantity of rice from the South.
D’Argenlieu lost no time in distorting and exaggerating the clash in Bac Ninh and reported it to Paris as an incident which had caused heavy losses to the French army and which “involved the responsibility of the Vietnamese government”.
A few days later, new provocative acts took place along the Vietnam-China border. On August 10, French troops made unprovoked attacks on our army in Tien Yen and Dam Ha. On August 13, they stationed local bandits in Lang Son. They harassed our compatriots in Ha Long Bay and on the Hong Gai seaboard. Meanwhile, it was reported that French troops were moving south from Son La. Earlier, d’Argenlieu had revealed his desire to set up in the North a “Nung—That republic” on the pattern of his “western republic” in the Central Highlands. The enemy’s activities, which were noted around the same time along the whole border from the coast to the mountains and from the east to the west, signalled the beginning of this scheme.
On July 18, Leclerc, the French general who had had a more or less correct understanding of the Viet Nam problem, had returned to France and the French government had appointed Valluy to replace him. In mid-August, Valluy left Hanoi. Until then, despite the French continuous provocations, Valluy had maintained a flexible attitude. On his arrival in Saigon, he even sent a cable expressing his thanks for our send-off and his desire for friendly relations between Viet Nam and France.
On August 17, Morlière who replaced Valluy, flew to Hanoi. This major-general had spent several years in North Viet Nam during the French domination. Later, he had gone back to France and had taken part in the resistance against the German fascists.
He had been credited with some achievements during the fight for the liberation of France.
I met Morlière at the airport. He seemed grateful for the presence of a Vietnamese government representative. He told me that before leaving France he had had the honour to meet President Ho and he was bringing a letter of introduction from President Ho addressed to us. He added that he had come to Viet Nam with the spirit of a new France and he strongly approved of the liberation of Viet Nam under the leadership of President Ho. He expressed his confidence that the Fontainebleau negotiations would end in great success.
In his contacts with us, this old general reiterated his desire to see a great improvement in the relations between France and Viet Nam. He often presented himself as having a great sympathy with the Vietnamese people and a high appreciation of their good qualities. To illustrate this, once in a talk with me, he extolled the “native soldiers” in the former colonial army and heaped praise on one of his servants who was a very skilful and honest cook! A few months later, Morlière was to send us one ultimatum after another — for a time, he was nicknamed “the general of ultimatums” — It was during his tenure of office as Commissioner of the French Republic and commander of the French Army in northern Indochina that the clash in Hai Phong broke out which led to war spreading all over our country.
Today we have sufficient documentation to form a clearer picture of this general. A report written by Morlière in January 1947 on the clashes in Hai Phong and Hanoi was made public recently in France. From this report, we can see that, although Morlière’s outlook and mentality remained very much those of a “colonial”, nevertheless he was someone who meant well and desired peace. In his capacity, he had tried to prevent the war-eager colonialists in Indochina from kindling a large-scale war. It was because of this attitude that he was recalled to France and “shelved” for a time. He was to be promoted and given an appropriate appointment only much later, when the French government realized its mistake in pursuing the war in Indochina.
Later in August, the first trouble over the customs took place in Hai Phong. As was said above, the French were very concerned about this question, which was raised by the French delegation at the Dalat and Fontainebleau conferences. No settlement had yet been found to the contradictory viewpoints of the two sides. The presence of French troops at a northern seaport made it possible for them to attempt to encroach upon our rights in the field of customs.
As a rule, foreign merchants who imported goods at Hai Phong port paid their duties to our Customs. Instigated by the French, some of them now tried to evade them claiming that the Sino-French Treaty had provided that Hai Phong was a free port. In August, we detained a foreigner who had brought with him an amount of new French currency which we had not yet allowed to be put in circulation, and confiscated from him 100 cases of cigarettes for tax evasion. On August 15, the French interfered in the matter, demanding the release of the detainee and the return of the confiscated money and cigarettes. The French military command in Hai Phong told the local authorities: “Hai Phong is a federal port and only the French are entitled to carry out a customs control. The French army will not tolerate foreigners being searched and their goods confiscated. If such incidents are to happen again, the French army will resort to military action. Of course we could not accept this absurd demand for there had been no agreement on federal customs reached between the Vietnamese and the French governments.
A few days later, while carrying out its duties in the port, the boat “Seagull” of the Hai Phong Customs was accosted by a French gunboat. French soldiers jumped onto our boat and attacked our customs officers, finally seizing our boat together with its men.
On the afternoon of August 29, Colonel Debès in Haiphong sent tanks, armoured cars and troops to besiege our custom-house and police station in the port. They arrested a number of our policemen, pillaged the goods in the custom-house and occupied the two buildings. We sent along our troops and a fight took place. The Vietnamese-French Liaison and Control Commission in Haiphong came to settle the conflict. We resolutely demanded the release of the detainees and the withdrawal of the French troops from the places they had illegally occupied.
Several anti-French demonstrations broke out in Haiphong. In the areas where they were stationing their troops the French had been terrorizing the population and old people and children began to evacuate the city. Our struggle went on. Not until two weeks later did Debès release our men and withdraw his troops from the custom-house and the police station in the port.
However, this was but the first, minor conflict in the customs problem.